Text and photos by Rob Danforth
This very fragrant, partial shade loving plant, blooms in the fall and attracts a host of pollinators. It is common to find many insects on its fronds, all at one time – long dinner tables, no waiting. Such plants increase your garden’s biodiversity and help keep beneficial insects in your neighbourhood. If you can have a selection of flowers blooming from spring through fall, you will be providing an insect restaurant open for the whole season. Vegetables do not bloom as often or in such profusion, so adding insect restaurants will invite beneficial insects to take up residence nearby instead of just passing through on the way to other gardens.
This bonsai was “designed” by someone. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder. We all “see”, but I believe our seeing is conditioned by our culture and our past experiences. I would like to talk with this bonsai designer for a guided “seeing.” I feel the same way about some of the modern art in Ottawa’s National Art Gallery.
This vertical gardening option makes use of narrow spaces and trains plants to grow to convenient heights and in convenient directions. These plants could easily have been placed flat along a wall or fence or trained up a trellis. Naturally, the plants must be shaped via cuttings and wires so growth is confined to the space allotted and does not poke the gardener in the face. Every garden can benefit from vertical supports and some shaping.
These tools are about 18 to 24 inches long and provide gardeners with an extended reach. One can reach that distant weed and also choke-up on the handle for close work. They are excellent for box beds as well as plots, especially for the gardener who is kneeling or sitting to garden.
This carrot stub (I ate the carrot) was planted indoors because I read that carrots could be re-planted after being pulled from the soil. The root did not grow much, but the top burgeoned! By the “umbellifer” flower, we can see the relationship to its cousin, the wild Queen Anne’s Lace.
I also purchased a twin pack of live lettuce from the grocery store, the kind in a plastic clamshell. The lettuce had root balls attached. We ate the lettuce and planted a root ball in the ground on a whim. Success! Leaf lettuce re-grew.
It is possible to grow some veg from grocery store produce (e.g., potatoes, sweet potatoes, live lettuce) and of course one can purchase grocery store, organic, live herbs in the winter, nurture them til spring (enjoying fresh snippets in your cooking all winter), harden them off, and transplant them outdoors in spring.
Squirrel gardeners planted peanuts in our yard, raw peanuts gathered from a neighbourhood critter feeder. They grew in various parts of our lawn and gardens and we let this one get as mature as possible. Our season isn’t long enough or hot enough for full peanut maturity, but it was an interesting experiment. The peanuts at this stage were soft and spongy.
These jars were used to compare garden soil from a community garden, and my compost. The garden plot (on the left) had a lot of sand – which was great for growing excellent carrots – and a very thin line of creamy beige clay near the top, full of plant nutrients. The top most portion of relatively clear water indicates that organic matter is sorely needed.
The jar of compost on the right shows a more homogenized particulate base of sifted organic matter with a nutrient rich compost tea on the top. The organic matter will continue to produce a tea of water soluble nutrients for some months. It is why we top dress with compost on our pots and plots and let the rain or gardener watering take the nutrients down into the growing mediums.
This is an easy soil test for in-ground gardens, showing the soil composition through layers and colours. To do this, take a jar with a lid (I used old mayonnaise jars but any mason jar would work) and put ⅓ soil and ⅔ water to fill the jar, but leave some air space at the top. Close the lid tightly, and shake vigorously. Set the jar down and do not touch it for 12 hours. The soil, compost, or potting mix will precipitate into layers and you can observe the structure of the growing medium.
Happy, Healthy Gardening!